


Heartwood

by todisturbtheuniverse



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-18 13:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2350625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a dark and stormy night, Bethany's unit is besieged by darkspawn. She has an unusual suggestion to increase visibility during the battle. </p><p>A snapshot of Bethany's time with the Grey Wardens, which is not always so dour as she'd once feared. Written for the 2014 DARBB, inspired by <a href="http://citrusconcerto.tumblr.com/">citrusconcerto</a>'s lovely art.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heartwood

**Author's Note:**

> The Warden (in this case, a Dwarf Commoner) is mentioned in passing. This takes place after her disappearance.

_Isabela,_

_I'd thank you to at least disguise the questionable reading material you send me. Alistair nearly had an aneurysm when I ripped open the paper._

It was a good two sentences, but Bethany didn't get a single word further. She stared at the vellum, trying to formulate what came next. How did one go about breaking a three-year silence, anyway? Especially when Isabela had written to her—inconsistently, but she had at least  _written_. And she'd sent things, even if they were  _ridiculous_  things.

And Bethany had sent nothing back.

She crumpled the page and started fresh.

_Dear Isabela,_

_Thank you for the books and letters. I know I haven't been in contact much, but I do appreciate that you've tried to stay in touch._

Isabela would laugh at that. Three years, and Bethany could still remember her kind smile—entirely different from the smirk she shared with Marian. She would tuck Bethany's hair behind her ear, press a sisterly kiss to her forehead, and tease her for being so earnest.

_Isabela,_

_Marian's stopped writing to me. Is she angry with me?_

She looked at the words, dark and accusing as they dried, and with a suddenness that still surprised her, she missed her sister. Not Hawke—the smuggler, the Deep Roads Explorer, the bane of Kirkwall's thugs—but Marian, whose eyes were just like Carver's, who always had a joke ready even when she was tired and hungry.

In an unusual fit of pique, she swept the letter and makeshift desk to the floor and pressed her elbows to her knees, dropping her face to her hands. "Maker," she muttered.

From the mouth of her tent, someone's throat cleared. "No, just me."

She peeked up through her fingers. Alistair stood there, half a lopsided smile on his face, considering the wreckage of her adventures in letter-writing.

"Don't laugh," she sighed.

"The vellum had it coming, did it?" he teased, grinning now, and stepped into the tent, letting the flap fall closed behind him. Despite her dour mood, her stomach fluttered a little.

"It did," she agreed. "If this cursed letter can't write itself, Maker knows I'll never manage it."

"Maybe you're writing to the wrong person," he suggested, sinking gracelessly to the floor beside her.

There were moments—usually in battle—when Bethany could see the Warden-Commander in Alistair: he was an intimidating presence with sword and shield in hand. Off the field, though, he was only two years her senior, still a little young and boyish despite his contributions to ending the Fifth Blight and his swift rise through Grey Warden ranks. Like now, when he couldn't quite arrange his limbs as neatly as hers. His beard was very distinguished, but his sprawled posture was not.

"I mean, I know who sent you  _this_ ," he continued, gingerly picking up the discarded book from the floor. A half-undressed woman swooned in her lover's arms on the cover. "Seems like things between you two are right as rain. But what about your sister?"

Bethany dug the heels of her palms into her eyes, hard enough to create stars in the darkness. "I can't write to Marian," she said, not as firmly as she'd intended. "She'll…"

But the truth was, Bethany had no idea what Marian would do upon receipt of a letter. Bethany had only written to her once: a sullen missive declaring that she had  _survived_ , for all the good it had done. Marian, though, had written dozens of letters—until three months ago, anyway, when they'd stopped coming. The very last had been only two sentences long, a bleak thing that didn't sound like her sister at all.

_Bethany,_

_You don't have to write to me, if you'd rather not. I understand._

_All my love,_

_M_

Bethany didn't  _want_ her to understand. She wanted her to keep trying. Maybe she only read the letters grudgingly, maybe she never replied, but there was something comforting about her sister's stories, which usually involved what mischief she'd gotten up to that week. Without those, Bethany was completely estranged.

She didn't  _want_ to be estranged. But she didn't know what to say, either. She was too afraid that her bitterness would pour through her words and wound her sister more than she'd already been wounded.

"You were right to be angry with her," Alistair said, for probably the hundredth time.

Bethany picked at her bedroll. "Was I? She was just trying to protect me. That's all she's ever done, her whole life."

"Sure, but that doesn't leave a lot of room for you to choose for yourself."

Bethany chuckled. "What else would I have chosen? Turned myself into the Circle as a child, left my family? Resisted being taken to the Wardens and died instead?"

Alistair shrugged. "I never said the choices were good. But they  _were_ choices. If you'd rather have died in the Deep Roads…" He swallowed, as though the idea pained him. "Well. You have a right to be angry, then."

"Oh, I don't know." She elbowed him gently in the side. "I don't think I'd have rather  _died_. It could be worse."

"It's okay not to be happy about it, even if it's not." He considered his feet. "I'm still furious with Natia, you know. I'm sure she had a good reason for taking off like she did, but I always think—would it have killed her to have told me first?" He rubbed the back of his neck, frowning. "I'm sure I couldn't have changed her mind, and I'm  _sure_ that's why she left that letter with Varel instead, but I'll never  _know_. That's what rankles—that the opportunity was taken from me. Decided by someone else."

"There's nothing to be done about it now, though," Bethany pointed out. "I can be as angry as I like, but what does that accomplish?"

"You have a right to it. Sometimes that's all it needs to accomplish." Alistair heaved himself to his feet and reached down to help her up. "Patrol incoming. Let's go see what the fuss is all about."

Bethany didn't think she would ever get used to that awareness of the darkspawn, thick and metallic in her mind. Sometimes it was quiet—usually when they were aboveground, and the only tainted presence nearby was her fellow Wardens—but most of the time it lay like a blanket of snow over her thoughts, muffling all else, drawing her attention to the monsters she now shared a kinship with.

It was growing stronger at the moment, heralding both the return of their patrol and the hot pursuit of a darkspawn group. She reached for her staff with one hand—the heartwood warmed beneath her fingers—and let Alistair haul her up by the other.

"They've been followed," she said, though she was sure he sensed it, too. She tried to pinpoint the number, but it was no good: there were too many to separate out the individuals, and they ran closer to the camp's perimeter with the breath harsh in their lungs and the bloodlust fogging their minds.

Alistair held the flap of the tent open, and she ducked through, still listening. She could feel her fellows, only a few minutes ahead of the horde, running. More than Nathaniel and his patrol felt comfortable handling on their own, then. That didn't bode well.

Rain dropped into her hair, startling her from her reverie. She tipped her face up to the opening skies. They were camped on the north shore of Brandel's Reach; it had been brutal work, clearing the Deep Roads between Amaranthine and this island. She'd been constantly reminded by the unusual moisture of not only the many tons of rock above them, but the many miles of sea, too—but the end result was nice. It certainly wasn't sunshine, but the fresh, crisp air was better than the Deep Roads.

"Bugger," Alistair grumbled, stepping into the rainy evening beside her. "I was hoping it had stopped."

With a smile, Bethany cast a forcefield above him. It was thin and small enough to maintain with hardly any concentration.

Alistair shot her a sideways grin. "That's new." His voice was unmistakably appreciative.

"Velanna taught me, when we were last at the Vigil," she replied, sort-of proud, which was a new thing to feel about her magic. "I need a lot more practice before I can call myself a force mage, though."

"Nice as it is, save your mana." He caught hold of her hand. The touch surprised her enough to make her drop the thread of her magic. Rain darkened his blond hair immediately. "It's going to be a long night."

"Is there any other kind?" she asked, rolling her eyes.

He smiled down at her. Her chest ached, just a little, at the soft expression in his eyes. He hadn't let go of her hand.

"I've heard rumors," he said. His voice seemed unusually low. "Can't say I've experienced anything else, myself."

"Well." Her voice came out too breathy; she cleared her throat and hefted her staff. "We'll have to make do."

Ahead of them, their sentries at the perimeter gave a sharp, three-tone whistle. Their patrol had arrived, and as they'd guessed, darkspawn were in pursuit. Bethany pulled her hand back, and with a last, rueful smile, Alistair unsheathed his sword.

"Everybody up!" he bellowed, shaking his shield from his back. This was when he sounded most like the Warden-Commander, and when he looked it, too: blue-and-silver armor gleaming in the rain, braced for a fight, voice carrying to all corners of their camp.

Her stomach fluttered again. Traitorous guts.

Wardens were easily roused. Even the rawest of recruits—and there were only a handful in their unit—could feel the incoming darkspawn and had already been alert, if not outright ready. They emerged from their tents, adjusting the straps of their armor, readying their weapons.

"Report," Alistair directed at Nathaniel, who had just halted before them.

Nathaniel pushed his sopping hair off his face with a hand that still held his bow. "They're coming from the north end of the island," he said, slightly breathless. "Must be an entrance to the Deep Roads there—might connect to Ostwick."

"Pity. Here I was, hoping we could hop over to the Free Marches in a more traditional way. With boats. How many?"

"Several dozen at least, Commander."

The Wardens gathered near them grumbled, drawing their weapons. The only one among them who looked at all enthused by this news was Sigrun, who'd already had her blades out, and now grinned as though her nameday had come early.

"Enough for a fight," she said, twirling her axe.

"And more on the way, probably," Alistair added, squinting up at the sky. "And in this sodding rain, too. The torches won't last."

Bethany had had her share of outlandish ideas since joining the Wardens. Marian would be proud to hear some of them, she thought; they were the ridiculous variety, the sort that her sister would be likely to suggest herself. This one, though, really trumped every single one that she'd suggested before.

"Maybe I could do something about that," she said.

Alistair and Nathaniel both turned to her. "Yes?" Alistair prompted.

With a bit of effort, she coaxed a ball of flame to life in the palm of her hand. It bathed them all in a warm glow. She used the force magic that she knew to protect the fire. Sigrun clapped as well as she could while holding an axe and a dagger.

Alistair guffawed. "Very nice. You're usually buried in the back, though, Beth. The light's not going to reach the rest of us."

"I know." She swallowed. "That's why I'll be up there." She gestured toward the sky, hoping they got the idea. She thought she'd lose her nerve if she had to say it out loud.

Nathaniel raised his eyebrows. Alistair's smile slipped right off his face. "How?" he said, disbelieving now.

"Force magic," she chirped, trying to disguise her anxiety. "I don't know how much I'll have leftover for attacking, though, so you'll need to hold the ground without me. And no cleansing spells, resident templar, unless you want to drop the only mage in your unit to her death."

He looked a little pale at the idea. "Right. If you're sure—"

"Not really," she said with a nervous laugh. She flipped her staff around so that the blade portion pointed down, like the head of a broom, and took a seat astride it. "Wish me luck."

"Be  _careful_ ," Alistair cautioned.

"I'll do my best." She directed a push of force magic at the ground, channeling it through her staff, and just like that, she was airborne.

"You  _have_ to take me flying sometime," Sigrun said, watching the spectacle with delight.

Bethany laughed, put more at ease by Sigrun's confidence in her abilities. "Absolutely," she promised.

She had to get much higher if she was to be of any use. She kept the pressure steady and rose—a dozen feet, then another dozen—until Alistair's face had turned away toward the incoming tide, and then she turned the force of her magic on a diagonal, until she glided slowly toward the perimeter of camp.

It was difficult to keep her balance, despite the force magic beneath her. It created a sort of platform beneath her broom, locking in her hips and legs, but her torso felt incredibly wobbly; she worried she might flip upside down and lose concentration any moment, and then she would almost certainly plummet to her death.

She maintained just enough downward pressure to stay afloat, and then reached for more mana, bringing the ball of fire back to life in her hand.

Carefully, slowly—even when the first clashes of weapons and snarl of beasts drifted up from below her—she stretched her magic thin around the flame, making it malleable enough to expand when the ball of light grew. And then she fed it, pouring her strength in until it bloomed bright enough to hurt her eyes. She looked down at the battlefield to see how her fellow Wardens fared.

The battle was spotlit by her magic, still wet and muddy due to the rain, but every movement was lit up like the sunniest of summer days. She saw Nathaniel near the back, firing arrow after arrow with smooth accuracy. Alistair was leading the charge, pushing the darkspawn back with every bellow, thrust of his sword, swing of his shield. She settled in to watch, mindful of her reserves, and decided she liked the field from way up here.

She had served in many roles for the Wardens. Usually from the back ranks, with rows of swords to protect her fragile mage flesh, but her fellows always cheered when she rained fire down in their midst, setting darkspawn aflame but never hitting any of her own people. She'd found a sort of family here, she realized, as eclectic as they were. Her life had become one long bruise, blooming and fading from one battle to the next, but she had purpose. It was more than most ever achieved.

She heard the roar before she saw the beast itself, and for a moment, her grip on her midair position wobbled. She bore down on her magic, getting her seat firmly beneath her, as the ogre charged into her field of light.

Alistair finished off the hurlock he'd been trading blows with and made a beeline for the ogre. Sigrun surged into the gap he'd left, dagger and axe flashing in Bethany's firelight. Alistair bellowed to get the ogre's attention, and briefly, Bethany saw another day: smoke rising on the horizon, a boy without armor shouting to protect his mother, a body dashed to the ground.

What would Carver make of her now—a mage who didn't have to hide, a Grey Warden? He would laugh and ruffle her hair, probably. He would write to her every week. He'd gloat about his sister, the heroine, the only mage in her unit.

It brought a smile to her face, even if her chest did ache at the loss.

Alistair cut at the ogre's legs. It swung at him with a snarl, but he ducked just in time. He swung again, and this time, his sword hit: blood, thick with corruption, spurted from the wounds. Bethany resisted the urge to cheer.

But the ogre swung again, and this time, Alistair didn't move quickly enough. His sword flew from his hand. He staggered back, stunned by the force of the blow, and the ogre reached forward, grinning. For a second, Bethany stayed frozen by horror, but then she lifted the hand that had been wrapped around her staff and tugged at the electricity in the air, funneling it to her target.

Right as the ogre's thick fingers closed around Alistair's breastplate, a crack of lightning struck down on its head. Stunned by the blow, it let go and fell, its body knocked askew. Alistair scrambled after it, armed only with his shield, and when his knees were firmly in place on the ogre's chest, he pressed the edge of the shield deep until its throat. Bethany imagined the sickening  _pop_ the ogre's head made as it disconnected from its body. Its legs twitched, and then it was still.

"Well," she muttered. "That's one way to kill a darkspawn, I suppose."

The battle went on around Alistair, but he switched his shield to his dominant arm and held his sword in his left. She heard him curse, even all the way up at her perch, when the strap passed over his wrist. Broken, she guessed. She'd diagnose it when she was back on the ground.

More confident of her grip on her midair position now, she tossed a few fireballs into the fray. A heartened cheer rose up from the Wardens.

She grinned until her cheeks ached.

By the time the rain turned to mist, the last darkspawn had fallen. Bethany made her way to the ground more quickly than she'd left it; in the end, she let go of her magic about five feet above the field and dropped the rest of the way. She landed with a slippery  _squelch_  in the mud and sighed in relief to have her feet rooted firmly in the earth again.

Alistair strode toward her with a wide grin on his face, broken wrist held stiffly at his side. "Good work," he called out to her, then raised his voice. "Get some rest, if you can," he told the unit at large. "If you need healing because you stupidly let an ogre disarm you, get an injury kit."

Sigrun chuckled, wiping her daggers clean. "That was just you, Commander."

"And I'm very embarrassed about it. Sigrun, take a patrol to man our perimeter. The rest of you, dismissed."

"I can help with that," Bethany offered as their fellows disbursed.

"I'd expect you to be worn out after that performance," he replied, but he followed her back toward her tent, anyway. "You were incredible."

"Thank you." She pulled the tent flap back, glad for the rain, which seemed to quell the heat in her face.

"Really." He ducked inside and stripped off his gauntlets as she followed him in. "You saved my arse."

She smiled up at him. "I'm sure you had it under control." She beckoned, and with a wince, he laid his hand in hers. "Oh, you poor thing," she teased, digging her magic into his bones. "A fracture. You must be in terrible pain."

"You're mocking me," he chuckled.

Before his humor could fade, she pulled the fracture together and eased the swelling. "Wiggle your fingers," she told him; his calloused fingertips tickled her palms when he moved them. "And rotate your wrist. Any pain?"

He moved the mended bone in a circle. "No, it's just a little stiff."

She propped her hands on her hips, letting him go. "Should be gone by morning. You'll be ready to slay ogres again by the time we reach the Deep Roads."

"Shame. I sort of liked it here, you know, before the darkspawn showed up." He wiggled his fingers again. "But we'll rest awhile in Ostwick. Or wherever this next road comes up. The maps aren't clear." He wrinkled his nose. Her stomach flopped around— _like a dying fish_ , she thought, both amused and irked. There was blood and mud all over his silver and blue armor, and his hair was matted down where the rain had gotten to it, and she  _still_ thought he was handsome.

He raised an eyebrow at her, and she hurried to reply, realizing that she'd been silent for too long. "Nothing ever is," she offered.

He looked on the verge of saying something else. He got this look—a slightly furrowed brow, worried eyes—when he hesitated over his words.

"Spit it out," she invited, more bravely than she felt.

"I've heard of a good tavern in Ostwick," he said slowly. "If the road  _does_ come up there. Best stew in the Free Marches."

She raised her eyebrows and made a joke. That was what people did when they were uncertain, wasn't it? That was what  _Marian_ did. "Are you trying to ask me to dinner?" she asked.

" _Trying_? My lady, you wound me." He put a hand to his heart, grinning.

"Is this just because I saved your arse from that ogre?" She stabbed a finger against his breastplate for emphasis.

"No! No, not  _just_." He caught her hand in his and squeezed. "It might have encouraged me to stop beating around the bush, though."

"And if the road doesn't come up in Ostwick?" Her heart was in her throat. She didn't notice until her voice came out all wrong, soft and low. It didn't sound like her at all.

With his free hand—the one she'd mended—he cupped her cheek. "Then we'll complain about the terrible stew all through dinner," he vowed, smiling. "There are taverns everywhere, Beth."

"Not on this island, there aren't," she pointed out.

"I could catch a rabbit, if you like. Or, rather, I could send  _Nathaniel_  to catch a rabbit, because I'm awful with a bow—"

She didn't know where she got the nerve. She'd changed under her own nose, it seemed, and she hadn't even noticed. She rose up on tiptoes and kissed him, right in the middle of his joke, and he went quiet and kissed her back, looping an arm around her waist to pull her close.

"All right," she agreed, when they finally came up for air.

"All right, I should send Nathaniel to catch a rabbit?" He looked just as dumbstruck as she felt; the silly grin made him look like a teenager, rather than the Warden-Commander of Ferelden.

She laughed and swatted at his breastplate. "All right, I'll have dinner with you. But not tonight. I have a letter to write."

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "As my lady commands."

When he'd gone, she stripped out of her mail and sat down on her bedroll with a fresh roll of vellum. For a moment, she considered leading with Alistair.  _You'll never guess who I just kissed_ , she'd write, and then,  _are you still kissing Isabela, or have you two gotten a bit further than that?_

In the end, though, she started the letter differently. It would take more than one missive to heal her relationship with her sister, and they would never be as they were, but it was a good start.

_Dear Marian,_

_You'll be delighted to hear that I rode my staff into battle tonight. Remember when Father would make Mother's dishes float, and how she always laughed when she discovered they'd moved? Our family seems to have a predisposition for force magic. I picked it up more easily than I thought I would._

_We're traveling to the Free Marches, but I don't know if we'll pass through Kirkwall. If we do, I'll stop by._

_With love,_

_Bethany_

Family was like heartwood, she decided. Even blighted, there was something worth salvaging in the remains.


End file.
